Leaving a Fortune 100 Company to Freelance Full-Time

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• Beaurocracy. It takes forever to make decisions and the pace is way too slow for my liking. This kills off motivation big time and there’s only so much you can accomplish with willpower alone.

• Loss of interest. Since they own my time for the hours I’m paid, I have to work on the tasks I’m given rather than what I choose. Sometimes this means tasks that are not very desirable or challenging enough to keep me excited about my work, so I’m doing them simply because I have to.

• Productivity. Initially, I was very excited to join the company and went out of my way to be as productive as possible to fit the description of a 10x engineer, but I soon realized there was no incentive to work faster than everyone else. We were all treated the same while I would simply move faster towards burnout instead of bonuses. Been there, done that, not fun.

• Big picture. Weeks and months went by, but I did not feel like I was growing both as a professional and as a person, which I consider very important — you either create or disintegrate as the late Bob Proctor used to say.

That all seems reasonable, but why freelance instead of finding another, more fulfilling job?

• Freedom of choice. Instead of having tasks shoved down my ToDo list, I can pick the projects I work on instead of doing what I don’t enjoy. This alone is enough to convince me to take the leap.

• Freedom of location. Though I was already working remotely, I couldn’t freely relocate as I pleased without notifying the staff. Now I can travel without asking for permission and without having to plan too much in advance. Rather, I can make spur-of-the-moment decisions that increase my quality of life.

• Higher earnings. Though I said money isn’t my sole motivator, getting to choose my own benefits instead of someone else deciding for me, is awesome. I can charge more than a regular salary and the company also doesn’t owe any payroll taxes, so it’s a win-win.

It doesn’t mean I won’t join a company for a longer period if I really like and support what they do. It just means that right now I’m looking to take ownership of my time and work.

The fact is I can always get a job because of the set of skills I was able to accumulate over the years. As for time? I’m not able to get it back, so if I don’t take the leap now, I don’t know when I would do it. Excuses are a dime a dozen and I believe in taking action.

Should you also do it?

I don’t recommend anyone simply take the plunge into this abyss. My specific set of circumstances allows me to undertake more risk right now and I’m also able to handle stressful situations. My monthly overhead (recurring expenses) is low enough to allow me enough breathing room even during income swings, so it works for me.

If this isn’t the case for you and you don’t have a plan to recover when things don’t go your way, make sure you start with that first. As the old saying goes, if you don’t plan, you plan to fail. You don’t want to end up in an unrecoverable situation that will have long-term repercussions on your financial well-being.

But once you’re ready, I genuinely believe freelancing is the way of the future. You’re truly in control of your destiny. You have your own one-person business. Offering a service is only the beginning of your journey, so you can end up making 7-figures on your own in a few years. This is very hard to do as a full-time employee. Not impossible, but really hard.

Been here before

For full disclosure, this isn’t my first rodeo as a freelancer. Back in 2015, I left my first full-time job to freelance, but that’s a story for another time.

It’s precisely because I’m already familiar with the good, the bad, and the ugly for both full-time employment and freelancing that I’m able to make a conscious decision about my way forward and I’m not here to convince you that you should also quit your job to become a freelancer. I’m here to simply tell you about my experience, so you could decide on your own and make gradual steps toward it.

(I’ll also guide you in that direction, of course!)

Looming recession

It may sound counterintuitive, but I think the looming recession actually benefits freelancers more than employees. Companies are looking to cut long-term costs, but they still have a roadmap to complete or they’re going to lose their customers. They can’t just throw their hands down and wait for the economy to recover — that’s a great way to go out of business really fast!

What better way to continue delivering features than paying short-term contractors to do the work with the option to cut the engagement off if the economy gets worse?

This is why you should definitely include a flexible cancelation clause in your contracts, but this also allows you to charge a premium for shifting the risk over from your clients to you.

It’s not that companies don’t have money to spend. Rather, they don’t want to tie up capital in long-term endeavors in case their cashflow dries up more than anticipated. This is called risk aversion.

That’s what all these layoffs are actually about. By choosing to pay severance packages now when money is plenty, companies free up capital for both emergency funds and to avoid falling below break-even when sales fall.

Do I support this decision? Definitely no! But you can’t do anything about it because it’s not your company. What you can do is decide to go on your own or stay and risk this happening to you.

This is, actually, another great example of why I consider freelancing a great option: you can build really good relationships with several businesses and avoid depending on a single employer, bringing you multiple sources of service income.

What’s next?

It hasn’t been easy so far, but I have no plans for going back to the corporate world. I’m going to remain a freelance software engineer and an entrepreneur for as long as I’m able to sell my services and products.

Thus, here’s what I plan on doing next, in no particular order:

• Write about my technical and business experience

• Grow a software development agency that builds SaaS products

• Launch a collection of resources for freelancers to be more successful (books, courses, checklists, templates, apps, etc.)

It’s an exciting road ahead and I’m only just getting started!

Comments from future me at the end of 2024

I’ve been doing exactly what I planned and haven’t stepped back into the corporate world ever since.

My product studio that helps non-technical founders build SaaS products is serving 3-4 clients at a time exactly as planned while I’m shifting my time toward helping you be more successful.

In the same spur-of-the-moment fashion, I relocated to Dubai in April of this year. Of course, my base expenses are now 5x higher than in Moldova, but I’m in a much better position now than when I left Oracle.

Also the economy is getting better worldwide despite the negative headlines and claims, meaning demand for independent professionals will only grow.

Are you going to take advantage of it?

I’m here to help, so go ahead and reply with the biggest problem you have right now when it comes to freelancing and I’ll solve it for you. Free of charge.

That’s all for today. See you next week!